As some people turned to religion for comfort, so, Highsmith wrote in her notebook in September 1970, she took refuge in her belief that she was making progress as a writer. But she realised that both systems of survival were, however, fundamentally illusory. She wrote, she said, quoting Oscar Wilde because, 'Work never seems to me a reality, but a way of getting rid of reality'. Andrew Wilson
About This Quote

In her book The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith said that 'Work never seems to me a reality, but a way of getting rid of reality'. In other words, for Highsmith, writing was a way to escape the tedium of the real world. Writing was not about creating something new; it was about distilling the past into new words. Writing was about separating the work from the reality of daily life.

Source: Patricia Highsmith, I-II Ifi"I IfioiI"IIi1

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